TIMBUKTU, Mali—French President François Hollande, in a visit Saturday to this ancient caravan city, said his military is seeking to wind down a three-week campaign even as soldiers continue to hunt for al Qaeda-backed rebels who had occupied the northern half of the West African country.

"Together we're going to hunt these terrorists down to their final refuge," President Hollande told a jubilant crowd in Timbuktu. "It would be a mistake to think that we, with the Malian army, in returning security to the cities of Gao and Timbuktu, can stop here."

The Conflict in Mali

Mali has emerged as the latest front in a global battle against Islamic militants. See a map of the conflict zone, track events in a timeline and read more about some of the key players.

French troops are pursuing Islamist rebels into the mountains along Mali's border with Algeria, the French president said. Militants from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Saharan offshoot of the terror group, are thought to have fled into the rocky redoubts after tanks and airstrikes drove rebels out of Timbuktu, and its larger sister city, Gao, last week.

The French intervention began Jan. 11, after a southern rebel advance captured towns not far from Mali's capital. Several thousand troops from other African countries are set to arrive in Mali to help with the next phase of the military campaign—maintaining control of towns freed from al Qaeda rebels. But logistical delays have complicated that transition.

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"The changeover is soon enough," said Mr. Hollande. "Now, it's the Malians who have the responsibility to assure the transition and above all the stability of their country."

The Malian army is still regrouping following a March coup d'état that left the government and security forces in disarray, and cleared the way for militants in April to take control of the northern half of the country.

The French intervention has breathed a new life into this roughly millennium-old city, where residents watched rebel gunmen bulldoze many of its cherished, centuries-old monuments, on the grounds that they were un-Islamic. In Timbuktu, several thousand well-wishers swarmed Mr. Hollande during his two-hour visit.

One sign read: "Salutations to you, the first citizen of France, François Hollande. You incarnate for us the angel who put a stop to the calamity."

The remnants of Islamic rule still stand near the Islamic Police headquarters in Timbuktu, where fundamentalist police enforced seventh-century punishments: whippings for cigarette smoking, amputations for theft, and executions for adultery.

"The city of Timbuktu is founded upon Islam and will be judged only through Islamic law (Shariah)" reads a billboard there.

Spray-painters have blotted those billboards out in the six days since French tanks arrived, and Mr. Hollande's visit capped a week of celebration. Drumming, banned under al Qaeda rule, welled up from the crowd.

"I want the French to stay here for even twenty to fifty years," said Abou Bakary Maiga, one of the crowd. "That would please us, because we are afraid."

The French military presence appears to offer some protection to Mali's Arab and Tuareg citizens, who have been accused by the Malian army and fellow citizens of helping fund AQIM.

When putting down rebellions after 1960, when Mali became independent, Malian troops carried out mass killings of citizens of Tuareg and Arab descent. When French troops moved into Kidal, a distant and largely Tuareg town this week, they took the town without Malian troops. In Timbuktu, a once-sizable Arab minority had almost entirely fled in the days before Malian and French troops chased the rebels away, and virtually no Arab residents joined the thousands of black Malians who welcomed President Hollande.

"We don't know where they are, but we're going to go house to house to find them," screamed Mariam Cissé, in a dress sewn from a French flag, of Malians of Arab descent.

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